Until reader Mike Henry alerted me to Ba Le Vietnamese Deli in Langley Park, I had generally assumed a trip to Falls Church was required for any decent banh mi in the area. But last week I made not one but two visits to the strip center deli. Four sandwiches later, I'm a serious fan.

I can't say that I was completely surprised by the Tuscan banh mi on the menu at Dino, that Cleveland Park temple to the art of regional Italian cooking. I mean, the restaurant's owner and chef Dean Gold is a notorious forager, known for his online dispatches from the hinterlands, whether Wheaton or Annandale, on [...]

The sizable crowd milling around the new Rebel Heroes truck told me one of several things: The Ballston neighborhood continues to struggle for cheap and decent lunch options, the magnetic pull of street food remains undeniable, or the banh mi sold from this mom-and-daughter operation is something special. Or a combination of all three. I [...]

Tan Nguyen is the 36-year-old co-owner of the new Rebel Heroes food truck, which roams the streets of Arlington, perhaps even as you're reading this. Nguyen and her mother, Ninh, are natives of Vietnam, and together they launched the business with the goal of "revolutionizing the sub." The focal point of the Rebel Heroes truck [...]

Sâuçá is the latest addition to the D.C. street food scene, and like the Fojol Bros., the truck is not satisfied to just sell quality bites. It's selling an experience. In this case, the experience is a concentration, perhaps more like a distillation, of the global cultural community into one high-tech truck.  You can taste [...]

We all know how hard it is to get a good, gourmet sandwich in this town. Well, it got a lot harder yesterday with the news, via WaPo's Tom Sietsema, that master baker Mark Furstenberg has decided to leave G Street Food, the once-and-former street food operation that turns out an excellent banh mi. Y&H [...]

Mark Furstenberg's vision for his new G Street Food was simple: He wanted to bring some of the world's greatest street foods to a city that has some of the worst. It's too bad that Washingtonians don't seem to appreciate them. Or at least don't seem to appreciate them as much as Furstenberg and his [...]

For reasons that will become clear later, Y&H has become obsessed with banh mi — and the many subtle ways one sandwich differs from another. Most in the D.C. area offer variations on these basic ingredients: a pork preparation (shredded, roasted, barbecued), pâté, cold cuts (including those divine slices of head cheese for crunch), pickled veggies, slices [...]

Bayless and Furstenberg: Men of the street Imagine Y&H's surprise when he stopped by G Street Food, baker Mark Furstenberg's new operation inspired by international street foods, and saw Rick Bayless casually walk in the door.  As if the celebrity chef lives just across the street, not half way across the country. Bayless, fresh off [...]

One by one, over the next several weeks, we’ll run through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us how your meal was when you [...]